Breadwell is one of a multitude of coffee shops situated right near my workplace. A differentiator is its great selection of teas (including a pretty great chai if you are that way inclined). I recently noticed a new inclusion in the cakes cabinet – teeny tiny little macarons. Obviously they were calling for me to try them. The other day I had a quick lunch with my mum, she had olive tapenade and bread ($6) and some meatballs ($7): I’ve had the meatballs before and they are fine, although a touch sweet which I don’t love. The tapenade was really good though, not too salty, quite chunky, with some ...
Archives for “review”
I was going through the photos the other day and realised that I have taken many food and coffee shots of St. Ali but never blogged since the one I did in August last year - name of post. It deserves a part 2 and even 3. I tend to visit it when I have a long morning at work or when I just feel like chilling out by myself and away from work. It isn't exactly the quietest cafe in South Melbourne. It is always buzzing with people, the slayer hard at work, beans roasting in the far end ...
What a feast! My need-to-lose-weight-diet was definitely thrown out of the window that evening. I could not help myself. The spread was fantastic and to top it all, great company. So many thanks to Nuffnang and Collins Kitchen for organising this foodbloggers event. More I say! The executive chef, Jason Camillo took us around the open kitchen and introduce us to its 5 different stations - sushi & crustacean, deli counter, wok, grill & wood fire oven and of course, patisserie. It is all about the food. Most of the produce here is sourced locally and menus are changed once every ...
Exhibition dates: 16th October – 28th February 2009 . “Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. I like the word however. To me it suggests something all together different: it evokes concern; it evokes the care one takes for what exists or could exist; an acute sense of the real which, however, never becomes fixed; a readiness to find our surroundings strange and singular; a certain restlessness in ridding ourselves of our familiarities and looking at things otherwise; a passion for seizing what is happening ...
There has been a massive amount of buzz since Dead Man Espresso opened on Market St in South Melbourne. There is a lot to love about this cafe, especially the staff and the coffee. But I’m in 2 minds about the menu. There are 2 menus, a reasonably limited brunch menu, served till 12 each weekday and all day on weekends and a lunch menu, served from 12 till 3 each week day. There is a bit of overlap between the 2, but the lunch menu is definitely a bit more diverse. Sadly, I only just realised it existed as ...
I love kopitiam mamak. The first that I do when I land in Singapore airport is to head to Changi Kopitiam to pick up a kaya toast and a Milo dinosaur before heading for the luggage. Can you imagine my excitement when Old Town Kopitiam first opened on Little Bourke. Alas it was not meant to be. I was totally disappointed. You can find out why here. So I was really skeptical about this new place and was not keen until I read the delicious tweets from @tummyrumbles and the blog post from essayeats. I headed down to the city on ...
. Here’s my pick of the twelve best exhibitions in Melbourne for 2009 that featured on the Art Blart blog (in no particular order) – and a few honorable mentions that very nearly made the list! . . 1/ ‘The Water Hole’ by Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger at ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) . . Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger ‘The Water Hole’ 2009 . “The most effective bed has a small meteorite suspended in a net bag above it. The viewer slides underneath the ‘rock’ placing the meteorite about a foot or so above your face. The meteorite is brown, dark and heavy, swinging slightly above your ‘third ...
Lindt’s champagne macaron and strawberry macaron So on the macaron trail I found myself at Lindt’s (relatively) new chocolate cafe in Collins Street. I side-stepped the display case filled with chocolatey goodness, headed up a couple of stairs and found myself in front of the macaron (or as they call them “delice”) counter. Lindt had a pretty good range of macarons on offer – including blackcurrent, vanilla, coconut, dark chocolate (70%), milk chocolate, hazelnut, passionfruit (with a passionfruit and chocolate filling), champagne, strawberry, peach, pistacchio and rose (with a ginger and rose filling). The macaron’s looked fairly good, much more attractive than ...
Looking for a post-work tipple and eat, we settled upon the recently opened Izakaya Den, a new outpost from Simon Denton & Co. from Spring St’s Verge. Izakaya Den is modelled on a traditional Izakaya, being a casual pub-type eatery found in Japan. Izakaya Den lurks beneath the Postal Hall at the corner of Russell St and Little Collins. After finding our way downstairs we were surprised to find a cavernous space with an industrial feel thanks to the exposed ceiling and hard surfaces. The drinks list comprised an impressive array of sake together with a good selection of beer and wine. We ordered a ...
Cafe Vue offers Friday night cocktail nights – $75 for 5 cocktails with a matched course, with the menu changing monthly. I have a weakness for cocktails (which was honed on my recent honeymoon) and a love of Shannon Bennett’s food so cocktail night became a must do. The theme for the October night was “Soirée au Monastère”, inspired by the beverages produced by monks. Mr M and I found ourselves at Cafe Vue on an unseasonably warm Friday evening to find the cafe swarming with groups of young women, out for a sex and the city-esque evening. Apparently the gender mix ...
Located in lane off Melbourne's China Town, HuTong Dumpling Bar is leading the way with the city's obsession with little stuffed pillows of food. It has raised the bar and the old favourites where the service is bad, the floor dirty and the dumplings cheap are no longer good enough. Paying twice the price and deigning to book a table is sure sign things are changing.I'm not joking when I say you need to book. It is virtually impossible to get a table just by turning up, especially if there are more than two of you. Why is this? ...
Exhibition dates: 28th August – 21st February 2010 . . Max Pam born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980–83 Road from Bamiyan 1971 gelatin silver photograph 20.1 x 20.1 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1979 . . Max Pam born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980–83 My donkey, our valley, Sarchu 1977 gelatin silver photograph 20.1 x 20.1 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1979 © Max Pam . . Max Pam born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980–83 Sisters 1977 gelatin silver photograph 20.1 x 20.1 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1979 © Max Pam . . Max Pam born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980–83 Tibetan nomads 1977 gelatin silver photograph 20.1 x 20.2 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1979 © Max Pam . . ‘Long Distance Vision’ is a disappointingly wane exploration ...
Exhibition dates: 15th August – 27th September 2009 . . Installation view of ‘Scenes’ by David Noonan at ACCA . . Thoughts Limited colour palette of ochres, whites, browns and blacks. Rough texture of floor covered in Jute under the feet. Layered, collaged print media figures roughly printed on canvas – elements of abstraction, elements of figuration. The ‘paintings’ are magnificent; stripped and striped collages. Faces missing, dark eyes. There is something almost Rembrandt-esque about the constructed images, their layering, like Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ (1642) – but then the performance element kicks in - the makeup, the lipstick, the tragic/comedic faces. Mannequin, doll-like cut-out figures, flat but with some volume inhabiting the ...
So. Lord of the Fries. Much loved, much raved about purveyor of vegan junk food. Or are they? Reports I have heard lately include: LOTF are using a new kind of vegan cheese and it’s not as good. LOTF chips have gone downhill in quality – they are being served cold and/or soggy. (One person stated: “When a nine year old boy tells you his hot chips suck, you can be sure they do.”) Someone ordered a vegan burger and got a normal burger. LOTF have changed the kind of bread they use on their burgers and it’s not as good (”unbelievably dry and horrible”). I ...
I'd like to be very clear. I'm a fan of Cookie. For one very simple reason: It's always fun. From the minute you climb the inner city ribbon-round-the-lift staircase and enter the non-descript door, there's just something so lively about the bar/restaurant space with it's noise, clamor and mural drenched walls. It's noisy, yes. But in a 'we're-the-life-of-the-party' kind of way. And when you ask to see the wine list and are presented with a veritable bible of a book, then you know you're in for a good night, and the noise level is understandable. There's also something really pleasing about the almost too casual service and the fun ...
Don't blink, or you'll miss it. Yep you guessed it, it's another Melbourne bar hidey-hole and it's sure as hell one cosy little place.Picture this; you're skipping down Crossley Street in Melbourne's alley-wayed CBD when you spy a nondescript door with a cheekily small and tantalising 'Von Haus' sign- in Melbourne, this is an open invitation to find out if the door leads to a bar/club/artists loft/warehouse/sale or (worst case scenario?), strippers. Either way, you simply have to take a peek- otherwise where's the fun?You wander down the short corridor, and through another studiously blank door to the left, you find it... possibly ...
Exhibition dates: 24th April – 9th August, 2009 . . John Brack ‘The chase’ 1959 . . John Brack ‘Two typists’ 1955 . . John Brack ‘Collins St, 5 p.m.’ 1955 . . John Brack ‘The bar’ 1954 . . John Brack ‘The conference’ 1956 . . John Brack ‘The block’ 1954 . . John Brack ‘The fish shop’ 1955 . . “One either has a subject, or one has not.” John Brack . This is a solid retrospective of the work of the Australian artist John Brack (1920 – 1999) presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. John Brack is, quintessentially, an Australian and more specifically a Melbourne artist. Melbournians have a love hate relationship with his work – loving the earlier paintings that view the working classes of 1950s Melbourne through a nostalgic, humorous, sardonic lens (when originally ...
Don't be confused. MoVida Next Door is not MoVida. Rather it is (as the name suggests) next door to the original MoVida in the brightly graffiti clad alley of Hosier lane in Melbourne's CBD. It's MoVida's little sister, baby brother or more casual counterpart. Of course, they may not be the same place, but they run on essentially the same fuel- chef Frank Camorra's exquisite tapas dishes, great location and atmosphere, and a glass or two of sherry in the mix. The joy of MoVida Next Door is that you don't have to book weeks in advance for your Spanish themed taste odyssey, rather with a ...
The first time my mum came to visit Melbourne she said to me 'no-one ever throws anything out here do they? They just gather it together and decorate the walls with it'.We were sitting at the polished wood counter at tiny Bar Lourinha, in Little Collins street. Looking at the walls crammed with paraphernalia from all era's and locations, I could see what she meant... the copper jelly moulds looked remarkably like some that my gran used to have... and the cabinet of souvenir teaspoons brought back childhood memories and thoughts of garage sales. There are horse shoes, portraits, ornamental deer ...
TASTE SOMETHING NEWRubber Ninja's guide to Krispy Kreme: MelbourneA rite of passage for every Melbourne visitor is the pilgrimage to the closest Krispy Kreme for a doughnut binge of epic proportions. So many flavours, so very little time :(Allow Rubber Ninja to take the guess-work out. See, as a gift to you, I selflessly forced myself to try most of the varieties so that you may never waste a precious mouthful on a doughnut that potentially doesn't live up to your expectations.Sigh, it's a tough life. The things I do for you.Bwah ha ha ha.. As salivating and naughty ...
Exhibition dates: 6th June – 2nd August, 2009 . Photographs from the exhibition are in the chronological order that they appear. . . Tacita Dean ‘Grobsteingrab (floating)’ 2009 . . Tacita Dean ‘T & I’ (Tristan & Isolde) 2006 . . Tacita Dean ‘Totality’ 16mm colour film 2000 . . “The subjects are connected to the medium I use. It’s all about light and time and phenomena to some extent, like a rainbow or a gust of wind or even an eclipse or a green ray, things like that. And this is the language of light. It’s not the language of binary pixels.” Tacita Dean1 . “The value of her [Dean's] work, writes Winterson, is one of the virtues of art itself: it is ...
Soy Mocha Mission: CBD(Soy Mocha Mission)Cafes chosen based on location, reputation and, sometimes, desperation...San Churrohttp://www.sanchurro.com/QV Centre, Swanston St (near Londsdale St)Chocolate Heaven, home of Spanish Hot Chocolate so thick and creamy you could almost stand your spoon upright in it, and delicious Spanish Churros served with Milk, Dark and White Courveture chocolate.Price: $6.00 (surcharge for soy and take-away)Service: Didn’t need to wait long, which was lucky as was finding it difficult to resist their cute “Chocolate Pops” and chocolate brownies, cheesecakes, puddings, and pastries in the window.Atmosphere: Dark, cosy, intimate, surrounded by chocolate paraphenalia and scents. Ace.Taste: Orgasmically good. Real ...
Exhibition dates: 25th June – 25th July, 2009 . . Marco Fusinato ‘Double Infinitive 3′ 2009 . . Marco Fusinato ‘Double infinitive 1′ 2009 . . ‘Double Infinitives’ by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne is an excellent exhibition of large UV ink on aluminium images sourced by Fusinato from the print media. The images are made up of a dot pattern familiar to those who have examined photographs in the print media closely. Larger and smaller clusters of dots form the light and shade of the image. As you move closer to the works they dissolve into blocks of dots and become and optical illusion like Op Art from the 1960s. Fusinato contrasts ...
Exhibition dates: 19th June – 25th July, 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Sekai’ (meaning ‘be humorous’) 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Tariro’ (means ‘hope’) 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Rutendo’ (detail – means ‘faith’) 2009 . . A stimulating exhibition by Emma Davies at Craft Victoria of polypropylene industrial netting and packaging that has been heated, moulded, sculpted and literally morphed into these fantastical sculptures, inspired by the artist’s experiences when visiting Johannesburg in South Africa as part of the South Project. Davies evokes the mysterious and the bizarre in her figures, making the commonplace into something uncommon, taking her themes from the relics of bush medicine present in the street markets: the medicine market of Johannesburg full ...
The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter MTC @ Fairfax Fri. 19 Jun. to Sat. 1 Aug. I have fallen well behind. This time of year—June through July—is the season of falling behind. But now I mean to make good; make good, at least, on three plays I let slip while earning a mean wage. In my next post, after a quick proof, I will offer a somewhat more adventitious examen than usual of Sample Theatre’s Sunny Side Up, now no longer showing, but worthy, still, of consideration. After that I will offer a slightly more regular discussion of The Weather and Your Health, which ...
